Dawn of an era: Embedded Systems Programming and ESC

One day in late 1987, Computer Language magazine editor JD Hildebrand walked up and down the halls of the Miller Freeman publishing company with a gleam in his eye, saying that we needed to launch a newsletter on embedded programming. JD had been convinced by some of the compiler guys at Intel that embedded programming was different — very different — from traditional software development and no one else “got it.”

I knew these Intel guys because I’d been trying to sell them ads for years into various magazines. They continually explained how cross compilers were different and, without the modern aid of resources like Wikipedia, I just nodded and walked away shaking my head, also not getting it.

Over the previous few years, I had collected a series of advertisements talking about debugging, emulation, and microprocessor-based development that used terms like real-time and firmware. I didn’t know what they meant, but I maintained folder full of them for the day when I would understand and maybe one day start a magazine on the topic (I had many such folders).

Hearing JD’s description, I ran out into the hall with my file bursting with ads and said, “forget the newsletter, let’s start a magazine!”

So begins a guest column published this month on Embedded.com, where Ted Bahr explains how Embedded Systems Programming magazine and the Embedded Systems Conference got started. If you want to learn what Ted was up to before we met — and see true publishing greatness in action — read “Dawn of an era: Embedded Systems Programming and ESC.”